Because of the registration process and my travel schedule, I hadn't read the Maisonneuve article by Siri Agrellon titled "Are Canadian Bloggers Pussies? - Why Canadian bloggers have yet to break a major political scandal" until this morning.
There's more commentary at the Canadian Journalist blog arising from the article, but both Agrellon (who is a personable writer who I enjoyed talking with) and the CJB are working from a false premise - that blogs exist to "break scandals".
If I had it to do again, I'd have challenged the premise of the interview. The problem with the exposure given to the blog-driven expose' of "Rathergate" is that it created a false assumption that bloggers are pajama-clad investigative journalists, busy bloodhounding about for scandals and intrigue. It's not that we don't love a good scandal or inside tip, or that we don't revel in the ability to beat the mainstream to a story, or delight in exposing bias or inaccuracy - it's just not what blogs on the whole are about.
For the most part, the majority of bloggers dedicate ourselves to providing more exposure to under-reported mainstream reports or finding expanded analysis or rebuttal from knowledgable individuals (think Belmont Club and Bill Whittle) . With a few notable exceptions, bloggers aren't doing investigative journalism in the traditional sense. We are more properly compared to internet guides and interpreters - a distinction that Hugh Hewitt has ably explained;
Trying to figure out a short definition of what a blog is, I have instead decided to answer that question by telling interviewers and audiences what bloggers do. A blogger is a "cyber sherpa," and when I used it on CNN I think it was instantly understood --at least by folks who know that sherpas guide people up the big mountains. We are living with a new avalanche of information every day, and the bloggers are the guides for the people who trust them, no matter what their area of expertise.
Yet, time and time again, mainstream journalists travel down this self-absorbed trail of "blogger vs journalist", set up faulty premises and then critique our work and judge our "success" on that basis.
In so doing, we're certain to be offered sniffy remarks dismissing most blogs as "lacking in original content". Somehow, with all the investigative skills and experience at their fingertips, the fundamental difference between the "linker" and "thinker" continues to elude them. And no article on blogging is complete without the words "echo chamber" - as though the editorial boards of the CBC, Toronto Star, and New York Times were the epitome of diversity in political thought and "Letters to the Editor" a repository of soaring intellect and meaningful insight.
If the mainstream media can't get a handle on a medium as transparent and readily researchable as blogging, what are we to think about the competence of the average journalist to collect and present factual and politically untainted information on more complex social and geopolitical issues? If they can't remove their own fragile egos and professional insecurity from the equation when discussing the blogosphere, how likely is it that hard news reporting has been self-edited to remove contamination by their own political world view?
If, after all this time, the mainstream media hasn't stumbled upon the simple realization that bloggers are nothing more than their own dissatisfied media consumers, ordinary people who are tired of being talked down to, tired of politicized reporting, tired of buried corrections, tired of entertainment riddled "national news" - who have found that with the internet, we can not only seek our own sources of verfiable information, but share them with others - is there any hope that the day will come when we can set aside our keyboards and return to our newspapers and radios as legitimate and dependable sources of information?
Which helps to underline something I said in the interview - blogs exist not to uncover political scandals, but because the media aren't doing their jobs. I don't read blogs by mainstream writers like Wells and Zerbisias because they already have a voice in the established media. What the hell do they need blogs for?
The very fact that journalists and columnists are blogging ought to be a professional embarrassment for the industry and cause for a little individual soul searching. Instead, journalists and media corporations alike are jumping on the bandwagon, oblivious to the fact that blogs exist because of the narcissism of a profession so enthralled with its own talk, talk, talk, it has done a piss poor job of listening.
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This like the old story of whenever a trend or fad becomes mainstream, the originals are aghast and quickly take the fire escape.
I remember the 60s when it was way cool to wear a medalian, until middle aged guys with fresh perms and open shirts took them to the disco to pick up babes with a bent to the symbolic.
You know ..... all those Jungians and that's most women in the past three decades. Freud, by this time had become to clinical and confusing was starting to look a bit like a really bright lech.
Point is, whenever anything is adopted by the great unwashed masses who shop WallyWorld ... that is a sign that it's now damaged goods and no longer cool.
If the great unwashed MSM floods the blog o sphere, will it become uncool to blog along with them?
In the 5 million blogs world, who do we believe ... what do we think? And what do all those big words mean anyways ....
"Are Canadian Bloggers Pussies?"
If you remove the word 'bloggers' from the question, you will immediately get your answer.
Posted by: Doug at October 14, 2005 12:59 PMThe media just doesn't get it.
Comments from Kinsella "What frustrates reporters - as Jeff Simpson writes today - is that Stephen Harper so clearly dislikes THEM. If Harper didn't dislike reporters so much - if his supporters didn't bash the CBC, the Star and the Globe all the time, on blogs and elsewhere - his coverage would be a whole lot better."
If we just loved the lefty reporters, they would love us back. Riiiight.
Mabe it isn't that they don't get it. Willfully ignorant is a better description. Print media is desperately trying to revive declining readership. The tried and true, content and editorial direction is unthinkable to consider.
Deaf and dumb.
enough
Good point, Duke! But surely, the primary difference between bloggers,(and those who post comments to them), and the MSM journos, has to be that the journos are actually PAID to write, PAID what to say, and PAID what to spin? And the more outrageous spin-doctoring that we get fed, the higher the price paid for it?
Bloggers, ( on the other hand), are providing this information on their own time- they can present whatever the hell they want to, and those of us who respond to these postings, can do so for whatever reason they feel like. (They say, that 'revenge is a meal best taken cold'!)
The MSM and their toadies can't compete with that. Nor can the insiders in government spill the beans on their bosses- they can be traced, and they can lose their paychecks, their perks, and their indexed pensions.
Are they deaf? No.
Are they listening? That's the problem.
Posted by: PhantomObserver at October 14, 2005 1:10 PM "...bloggers are nothing more than their own dissatisfied media consumers..."
"...blogs exist not to uncover political scandals, but because the media aren't doing their jobs."
Bravo, Kate. This is perhaps the best treatise about bloggers that I've read. I hadn't read Hugh Hewitt's definition, but I think yours is much better.
Welcome back.
Posted by: Brad at October 14, 2005 1:13 PMYou know Kate, I've never heard the term "echo-chamber" before (wrt blogs) anywhere except your site. I've also never heard too much negative in the news about blogs. The primary reason for this is that I don't listen/read/watch the MSM anymore. When I start up my browser it takes me to my home page which is filled with the top 3 latest big stories from: Canada, World, BC and Alberta. I read the headlines and occaisionally click on a story to get more details, but it's always a fairly short story where the reporter can't get too biased. For my main interests in news I visit a few blogs on a daily basis.
I visit SDA about 6 X / day, LGF 2X/day, SteynOnline 1X / day and a few select others 3X per week. That's how I get my news. You and LGF always link to the story so I can read the whole thing and then get some more commentary from your sites.
Oh yeah, I also occasionally read links posted by Maz2 and Mark Collins (who seems to get lots of letters published by M.Steyn).
Re bloggers do it for free. I suggest that the high end bloggers will wind up with advertisers who will want to pay for exposure, then eventually, there will some conficts and some direction about content and so on.
Eveything starts good, but then the control freaks nose around to see if there anything that might resemmble a trough to stick their snouts into. And on both sides .... private .. paying for exposure, government charging you for it.
A note to collectivists and control freaks, freedom is scary, but makes you the most happy.
Keep blogs sponsor-free and govenment-free. That's the best way to find happiness in informtion exchange. We reaaaaally need some honesty in what's going on around us, for us and to us. Free blogging appears to be the best shot.
Posted by: Duke at October 14, 2005 3:17 PMMorris Abercrombie: Must be something about the name.
Mark
Ottawa
Today there's a perfect example of how MSM misses stories that should be on page one, that only a blogger caught. Why they missed it, one must wonder.
The feds surgical wait list czar admitted to Maclean's there would be no new standards come December 1st as Paul Martin promised; when it got out (in only a few outlets) then the butt-covering commenced that no one in MSM has caught onto.
http://blackrod.blogspot.com/2005/10/postl-spills-beans-liberals-panic.html
Contributor Profiles: Pamela
Welcome to our ongoing series of biographies on contributors and bloggers who have joined our effort to gather a vast array of topics, opinions, news and personal passions into one easy-access place. While we finalize our plans and approach our online launch date, we thought you’d enjoy meeting some of the people who comprise the dazzling mix of expertise, talent and individuality of the blogosphere. Enjoy!
Pamela, a former associate publisher of the New York Observer, lives on the East Coast, has four daughters and blogs using her first name only.
Pamela – Finally at the top, she walks away for her kids >>>>
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/
http://pajamasmedia.com/
Maisonneuve article here:
http://www.rapp.org/url/?OJECWTS3
bob - that's a serious post - I wonder how long before the CPC et al get wind of it.
Posted by: Candace at October 14, 2005 4:48 PMAngry in the Great White North has a post on the waiting list issue:
http://angrygwn.mu.nu/archives/126268.php#more
Mark
Ottawa
Kate I swear if you posted the daily and weekend crosswords I would never again purchase a newspaper
Posted by: kelly at October 14, 2005 5:25 PMNo crosswords. Next thing it'll be lottery numbers and horoscopes. Glad you're back up to speed.
Posted by: rebarbarian at October 14, 2005 6:52 PMBeautiful Kate is right on target again. Welcome back. You have been missed.
Regards,
Posted by: Tom Penn at October 14, 2005 9:07 PMKelly and Rebarbarian, that's not a bad idea. I already have 9 or so comics on my blog, and I've been thinking about adding something like crosswords or Sudoku. Horoscopes and lottery numbers? Sure, why not? How about chess and bridge problems too?
Then all I'd need is a script that lists some headlines from major news wires, and maybe some pictures of hot women (hey Kate, do you want to be my first sunshine girl?), some advertising...
Posted by: Ed Minchau at October 14, 2005 10:42 PMAdScam Martin's "Hate America" campaign is underway, meaning " I Hate Canada and Myself Too" . >>>>
Bush, Martin share "frank" words on softwood
Reuters - 23 hours ago
By Randall Palmer and Steve Holland. OTTAWA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin bluntly rejected a call by US President George W. Bush on Friday to negotiate an end to a softwood lumber dispute between the two countries. ...
maz2: It's also a "Hate Alberta" compaign--led by the Globe and Mail.
Mark
Ottawa
Toronto Star, which is a Liberal rag, & Liberals never lie, is kicking Martin in the shins. Kick higher, please.>>>>
Martin's simple solutions no real answer
A rush to respond
to every challenge
JAMES TRAVERS
We must be fools. If that weren't so, Canadians and their federal government would surely be deep in conversation.
Led by a prime minister whose big political idea is to raise great expectations for the country and the world, citizens, voters and taxpayers would be thinking through problems that are, to tell the truth, perplexing. First, we would be considering options and then making choices.
But that's not what's happening. An administration often accused of careening from guardrail to guardrail identifies problems complex enough to hurt ordinary heads and then offers simplistic, singular solutions.
That pattern repeats fast enough to blur vision. In a rush to respond to every challenge, Paul Martin is trying to convince the country his government has the answers. Here are just some of them.
The policy counterweight to a falling population is to bring in 100,000 more new immigrants annually to join those already here and not necessarily succeeding.
Doing more business with India starts with quietly abandoning Canada's decades-old leadership role in limiting the spread of nuclear weapons. And the best way to make this country more competitive later is to fund daycare now.
Of course, Martin is right to ask Canadians to think harder about the future. As the Prime Minister says so often, the world is changing at lightspeed and those who don't keep pace will be left behind. [Meaning whom? Martin?] >>> more
http://www.rapp.org/url/?92W3JE1U
Mazz and Kate, Thank-you both a thousand times for all you have done to inform people like me. Kate, you have created an atmosphere on your web page that welcomes depressed, dispondant, angry, frustrated and disenfranchized people like myself to SAY SOMETHING. You have given people back their freedom; the freedom to express OUTRAGE over how the MSM and left wing wackos (NDP/Liberanos/Bloc) have treated us and our concerns over the last 25 years. I used to send letters to the editor and have them cropped beyond recognition, ignored and never printed or returned with threats of slander. I have been called a 'loose cannon' and told to keep my head down and my mouth shut if I wanted to keep my job, I have been refused employment because of my blunt past comments.... I was once fired from a lowly flagirl job for putting a Vote Social Credit sign up beside the Vote NDP sign in Dept. HYWS lunchroom in B.C. The economic devestation threats to people are what is keeping the Liberanos in control - step up Steven Harper and claim your win before it happens - IF people thought the CPC could win an election, the CPC would win in a landslide!! The trough is lined with snorting pigs while Joe taxpayer is giving the snots lip service to enable him to pay the morgage. If people would read books like Solzinitzyn's Archepelligo I,II, and III they would see themselves in the mirror. Defending the bad so you don't get starved out is as old as tyranny itself. Fear, naked , stinking, cowardly fear is all that is holding back this nation. You, wonderful Kate, are a trail blazer in breaking the cycle of dependance. I cheer for all you bloggers and commentators that make this web page and it's links the launch pad for the freedom of Canadian people.
Posted by: Jema54 at October 15, 2005 8:55 PM